The Arizona sentinel., 1887-01-15
ASPARAGUS CULTURE.
Observations and Experiments Made by [
 Successful CultivatOr.

Successful Culttyator.
 It seems to me that the method ot deep setting this crop is a mistake. I have spent money carting dirt on to asparagus beds, but it was labor lost; the yield was no better. We live and learn. Studying the habit of the plant I found much that is interesting. Flowing an old meadow found roots of asparagus that had sprung from seeds, and the clumps of roots when turned up were about eighteen inches long and had in all cases grown by inches toward the south, adding new bud each year, the old buds or roots being connected together with the only in the new bud. Another bed, in bearing over thirty years and for the last fifteen without manure, has shown signs of running out. The stalks are of good size, but very thinly scattered over the ground, so that one-fourth of the two-acre lot was ploughed up. This was done with little difficulty, as the roots were not strong in the land.
 The decay and decreased production was laid, not so much to the lack of fertilizng as to the fact that of late years the ground had been worked twice each season with light one horse blow, instead of by the old meth cd of hand-digging with the six-tined fork; the roots were probably cut of below the bearing point from time to time by the blow, and the part of the lot worst affected was where the plants were deepest in the soil. Another bed was set in rich land ten years ago, not very deep. This, when a small part of it was plowed up to make room for hot beds, proved a very tough job-the hardest blowing l remember. The roots here seeemed to grow in all direc- tions as to points of compass, but always with the terminal shoot only, ready for the spring trade.
 A bed of one-fourth acre set in the spring of 1855 with two-year-old roots of the Moore's Crossbred variety had last spring stalks all along tho rows from one-half to one inch through, large enough to cut; but none of them were cut this season, as it is not considered advisable to cut much till the third sea- son after planting. This bed is on a side-hill sloping east that had received an annual maturing for twenty years. The land was heavily manured at the time and the manure worked into the soil. The plants were set in rows three feet apart. The plants were about a foot apart in rows and not more than four or five inches below the surface; in fact, set in the rich surface soil of the garden without subsoiling or any such trenching as is usually recommended. Next season this bed will yield an abundant cutting of splendid shoots, and if worked with fork and not with A blow will remain in bearing at least thirty years.
 As for manure, I believe for aspara- gus, as for hubbard, that the manure should be applied in the fall. Our al luvial soil does not respond to commer- cal fertilizers; but wood ashes, leached or unleached, and horse manure are our dependence. This put on in the fall and worked into the soil early in spring, | the ground cleared of weeds about July 1, and then left till November, when the beds are moved down and burned to kill seeds. There is absolutely nc "best time" to get bed, but either fall or spring, as suits. The fallis better or some mnor accounts-the land is ir better condition to work, the plants are dormant and there is more leisure to dc that job well. The plants are best fol setting at two years, for then you gel l = zf T, and strong enough to make vigorou: growth at once. One-year-old plants are good if the best ones be chosen ant you can raise your own seedlings anc in the meantime prepare the lane for the future bed by crops which vii leave the soil in good condition to se the asparagus.-W 4. Bull, is M r Tribune.